NEVER Forget The Stingray Shuffle

Earlier today I had the un-fortune of running into -literally-a new friend while enjoying a beautiful-sunny Huntington Beach Sunday with Cleber Luciano and Jason High. Only this new friend was an angry/scared stingray and it was definately NOT my friend! My first thought was that I had been pinched by a crab or some random crustation. My second though was that I was pretty far out and probably bleeding. Having been a child of the 80s a very quick JAWS montage played through my head as I swam as quickly and efficiently back to the shore as possible. It is at about this time that the burning started. Not your average “I’m cut” burning, but the “Oh, crap that was not a crab” burning.

As I hopped several meters to Cleber and Jason the pain was replace by the anxiety that this might somehow affect my ability to compete in the IBJJF World Tournament for which I had traveled all this way. Some one alerted the life guard-and I use that term loosley for this slow as molasses underachiever-and I was told to sit down. A very nice lady came up to help and told me that it was probably a stingray. The “lifegurad” in his vast medical knowledge agreed before even looking at the wound stating that, “there are alot of stingrays in the water over here”. To which I thanked him for all of the signs and warning placards that he and his colleagues had been so forward thinking as to have posted to warn people. Just a side note, I have been swimming and surfing oceans for many years so…probably my bad, but at the moment his bad. After an excruciatingly long wait for the slowest lifeguard ever I was informed that they were seriously understaffed and that it was probably faster for me to make my own way the 2 mile away destination of medical aid. To say the least I was not pleased but intense burning, bleeding, and anxiety of potentially not being able to compete is a strong motivator! I wrapped up my foot, speed hopped several more sandy meters then jumped on my trusty borrowed one speed-yes, this all started with a spontaneous bike ride- and rode away curse-pedaling my way across the not-normally so long 2 mile bike ride. The above video is what happened after I made it to the medic center, which had a much more helpful and quick staff. Here the fears of competition crushing infection were mostly laid to rest as I was instructed to soak my foot in scalding hot water to break down the protein based poison. What’s not in the video is that this room is covered with pictures of stingrays. Not the best idea to litter a room for victims with candid glamour shots of your attacker, right? Hope you enjoyed another installment of weird things that happen to Mikal. Peace!